Modern Turkey was founded in 1923 from the Anatolian remnants of the defeated Ottoman Empire by Mustafa Kemal, who was later honored with the title Ataturk or "Father of the Turks." Under his authoritarian leadership, the country adopted wide-ranging social, legal, and political reforms. After a period of one-party rule, an experiment with multi-party politics led to the 1950 election victory of the opposition Democratic Party and the peaceful transfer of power. Since then, Turkish political parties have multiplied, but democracy has been fractured by periods of instability and intermittent military coups, which in each case eventually resulted in a return of political power to civilians. Turkey joined the UN in 1945. In 1952 it became a member of NATO. In 1964, Turkey became an associate member of the European Community. Over the past decade, it has undertaken many reforms to strengthen its democracy and economy.

Turkey's national public broadcaster, Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, operates multiple TV and radio networks and stations. There are also multiple privately-owned national television stations and up to 300 private regional and local television stations. Additionally, multichannel cable TV subscriptions are available, and there are more than 1,000 private radio broadcast stations.

Dogan Media Group is the largest Turkish media company. It publishes the major dailies Hurriyet, Milliyet, Posta Gazetesi, the sports daily Fanatik, and many others. Another Turkish media corporation, Turkuvaz Group, is owned by Calik Holding, which has connections with the political party AKP. The newspaper Sabah, the sports daily Foto Mac, and regional newspaper Yeni Asir, are all published by the Turkuvaz Group. The popular liberal Islamic daily Zaman is owned by Feza Group, which has close connections with the Islamic sect leader Fethullah Gulen. Zaman has a sister newspaper, Today's Zaman, which is published in English.